Am I being paranoid?

[Elite Romancer]

Since she forgiven you in the past for cheating it's only fair to give her a second chance too. The only issue is that you must punish her otherwise you'll be showing (with your actions) that her cheating results  in nothing negative, which incourages her to give in to her cheating behaviour in the future because you'll simply forgive her again. In this situation, you must tell her she needs a job, such as in retail or a cleaning job, florist job, something to help contribute to the household and not playgames all day, and until she gets a job no more playing online video games. This is perfectly reasonable considering she's been doing nothing and cheating on you in online games, and tried to hide it when you were getting close to catching her out. Understand she would never of cheated on you if she respected you more, and to make her respect you, you're gonna make her feel punishment for her crimes of cheating (through no more online games / getting job), and make sure not to give into an easy punishment, as this won't make her respect you. If she don't respect you her behaviour will show it, and she will do disrespectful behaviour again, such as cheating and blaming you for lack of sex while you're slaving away at work as she lounges at home gaming and cheating on you. 

She needs to somehow contribute fairly to the relationship otherwise your actions are showing she is the queen and you the worker bee, which results in her taking advantage of you, playing games, cheating on you and then excusing herself as in "it's just a game honey". It's all due to her having zero responsbility contributing, lack of respect. Hope this makes sense OP. 

 

[Lost_Confused326]

This is pretty much all the stuff I laid out, and everything mentioned she has been doing, looking for a job, quitting the game etc. 

[Batya33]

2 minutes ago, Lost_Confused326 said:

This is pretty much all the stuff I laid out, and everything mentioned she has been doing, looking for a job, quitting the game etc. 

That's great that she quit the game.  I'm glad she is looking for a job.  You both need to think about and act on how you each feel about doing the actions that are consistent with being in a committed relationship and being people of character and integrity and it's fine if you are not motivated enough -or she is not motivated enough -to be that person for each other.  It doesn't mean you wouldn't do this for someone else it just might not be enough.

 

[LotusBlack]

On 6/8/2024 at 2:50 AM, Lost_Confused326 said:

Hardly any misgivings at all, and usually if there was one it was just my mind racing in the wrong direction or jumping to incorrect conclusions.  She was more engaged, but she's always been into the phone stuff.  And she engages with my daughter wonderfully and my daughter loves her.  In all but name she is her step-mom. 

This stuck out to me a lot. All I see when you say the above boldened is that something has happened in the past and she (and you) has gaslit you into thinking, feeling, and completely believing that your instincts [that very likely correctly asserted that relationship boundaries had been crossed and violated] were actually you being paranoid and jumping to conclusions. 

I don’t think you jumped to conclusions; I think your partner was playing with fire and you recognised something was amiss. She stopped playing with fire and glaslit you into brushing things off. But, now she has very clearly gone past just playing with fire. She is acting on her thoughts in ways that do not serve the relationship but, rather, fracture it.

A person who loves you is not going to allow you to be in a position where the relationship is imbalanced in any way. This includes, financially, emotionally, romantically, distribution of responsibilities, and regarding respect. If, for example, one partner is working and providing a paid income and the other’s job is to raise children and/or care for the house, then there is an understanding whereby both partners have agreed on the value of their respective contributions and have balanced it out to be fair by their standards and that which serves the relationship. 

Your partner, by not just “allowing” you but actually wanting you to be in position of sole financial responsibility whilst not providing her own contribution in lieu of money, is creating imbalance in this area. For, if she is spending all her time - as you have stated - playing games, then she wouldn’t have time to be doing much else. In addition, she is focusing her sexual interest on someone else, which takes away from her sexual relationship with you. So, you are now imbalanced in that area too. Further to this, her sexual focus being on someone else (already known) and potentially others in the future (her proposal to become swingers) further creates romantic imbalance as this all occurred before having a conversation with you about her desires, desires which had fully developed and found direction before a word to you ever left her lips. You should have been the first to know her thoughts after she’d thought them, not the last.

All of the above to say that in no area of your relationship are things balanced and without balance there can be no respect. Without respect, there is not trust or love. This is not love. This is a relationship of convenience for her. I am certain she cares for you to some degree, but love does not allow one to continue to wilfully blind themselves to the unavoidable inequality that occurs when a relationship becomes imbalanced in these ways. If I were to be so self-focused that I somehow genuinely missed the position I put my partner in as a result of my gross inconsideration, I’d be horrified beyond belief and immediately remedy the situation. This is not what has happened here and you have had instances in the past where you have brushed off bad behaviour and chosen to believe your instincts were misguided.

Finally, if you are working 40 hours, how can you be certain of your partner’s interactions? A relationship should never require monitoring, policing, or a parent-child dynamic - all of which would have to occur in your imbalanced relationship for you to trust her again in limited contexts. Yeah, no thanks. That’s not love, that’s fear. Do yourself a kindness and find a balanced relationship with a loving partner. This isn’t it.

Post Scriptum: Couples counselling is the absolute minimum necessary to resuscitate this relationship back to intensive care from dead if you insist on continuing forward.